Monthly Archives: April 2016

By: Madelyne Maag Over 2 million people are currently addicted to opioids in the United States. And according to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, it’s time the nation does something about it. Murthy told journalists at the Association of Health Care Journalists‘ conference in Cleveland that his office plans to launch two major efforts to…

By Yuan Yuan By the time Kristen Schulte graduated from college, she was already an experienced environmental educator who had led trail crews and given educational tours in 10 different national parks across the country. “Most people wait until they’re juniors or seniors to do an internship,” Schulte said. Instead, she took her first internship at…

Franciscan nuns practicing Christian centering prayer say they experience union with God. Buddhist monks deep in meditation describe seeing the true nature of reality. As they deflect thoughts about their own world, they feel themselves connected to something larger – to God, or to the cosmos. And as they move into this state of spiritual…

Growing up in Mexico, a small town in Missouri, Alex Finck had known most of his doctors his whole life. So when he was considering a career in medicine, it made sense to him to head back where he was familiar. “I always liked science, and then I kind of asked myself senior year what…

By Marlee Ellison Nestled in a dim office in the Bond Life Sciences Center is a small tank of carnivorous plants–plants that consume insects. Heidi Appel tends to pitcher plants, “sticky traps” and Venus flytraps, their colors vibrant against damp soil. The fluorescent-green Venus flytraps lie in wait for an insect meal, stems extended and jaws…

By: Yuan Yuan During Marcia McNutt’s tenure as the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, she had to deal with earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Japan and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. However, none of these controversies prepared her for the controversy surrounding geoengineering, the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s natural systems to counteract…

By John Heniff “Weather is your mood, climate is your personality.” That was one of many gems that meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd shared with his audience Mar. 19 as part of MU’s Life Sciences and Society Program symposium,“Confronting Climate Change.” The University of Georgia professor and director of the campus’ atmospheric sciences program enlightened the audience with…